284 THE WHALEMAN'S ADVENTURES. 



and then with the real Christian. He is brought 

 by Providence into straits and perplexities 

 whence he cannot rise and extricate himself 

 alone ; where the wings of faith and love seem 

 to be of no avail to him, until a friendly hand 

 lifts him up and throws him out upon the deep, 

 where he must say, with Peter, Lord, save ; I 

 perish. Then he loses despair; he surmounts 

 the difficulty; he breaks his prison ; he mounts 

 up as on eagle's wings ; the pinions of faith 

 and love sustain him, and bear him away aloft ; 

 and he wonders now at the nightmare of doubt 

 and fear that kept him from using them be- 

 fore. 



He is ashamed of the wrong thoughts of 

 God, that had begun to gather and darken in 

 his mind like gloomy clouds. He sees that God 

 was infinitely wise and good in appointing the 

 discipline to which he has been subjected; and 

 those un uttered, perhaps, but felt murmurs 

 against the dispensations of Providence, now 

 fill him with sorrow and shame. Peculiar and 

 trying as his case may have been, he now dis- 

 covers many blessings and beneficial conse- 



